KWA-GWA-AAAAAANG!!! KUKWAANG!!
Roars that no human could ever imagine rang out in rapid succession.
I didn’t know exactly what was happening on the floor above, but one thing was certain: it was a brutal, bloody mess.
When did I start deluding myself?
I had thought she was someone I had to protect. I had convinced myself that I was the only one who could shield her.
I had completely overlooked the child’s “growth.”
No, Mister Kuzen. More than Mister Kuzen, more than me, and more than Ms. Ukina...
“...Eto is strong.”
It was easy to guess where Eto had gone after leaving the house. Her brief adventure must have left a vivid scar on her heart.
But Eto was different from me.
Unlike me, who simply let my wounds fester, she didn’t collapse under the weight of her pain. She sublimated that trauma into strength.
“Good grief, I’m a pathetic sight...”
A child is growing like that, and what the hell am I doing? It’s honestly embarrassing.
I pulled the pill bottle from my pocket.
It was small enough to fit in the palm of my hand. I felt a wave of misery realizing I had been relying on something so tiny and insignificant.
As I gripped the bottle... a rotten, decayed hand clamped onto mine.
“...!”
The hateful hallucinations were acting up again.
One was a man clinging to my arm, his flesh so rotten that his bones were exposed. Another was an old man with patchy hair and eyeballs dangling precariously from their sockets. Then there was a young man whose face had turned a ghastly hue from strangulation, and that woman from before, with nothing but death in her eyes. More of them kept crawling out of the floor, the ceiling, and the windows, tangling themselves around my body.
This swarm was stronger than usual, both in number and intensity. But...
“...I’m not running anymore.”
I pushed myself up, leaning against a pillar for support.
The weight of the countless corpses dragging along with me made my body feel heavy. ...No, in truth, it was just exhaustion making it hard to move. My anxiety was merely playing tricks on me.
I had to hurry. But this was just too damn heavy.
Unable to take it anymore, I glared at the corpses, a vein throbbing in my forehead.
“Get lost, you bastards! My daughter is fighting right now. I have to go!”
-『...!! ...!!』
The hallucinations let out silent shrieks, bunching together before surging toward me like a tidal wave.
These things didn’t vanish that easily. To make them disappear, I had to take the medicine. I tightened my grip on the pill bottle.
“I SAID GET LOST!!!!”
Instead of bringing the bottle to my mouth, I hurled it with all my might at the monsters. That was enough.
-『...!!!』
From the point of impact, the corpse hallucinations let out pained screams and crumbled into dust. No—it was my own “weakness” that was crumbling away.
Only after the corpses vanished did I feel my body lighten. It felt as if the void gnawing at my chest had finally been cleared, allowing me to breathe properly for the first time in ages.
“Good. Now then...”
I gave myself a quick stretch and glared at the ceiling, which was still shaking from the sounds of battle.
“Shall I go smash the bastard who’s tormenting my family?”
***
KWAANG!!
“Tch!”
The Ghoul clicked his tongue after another attack ended in a complete miss.
He had chased Koma and Eto into the abandoned building and, hearing noise from the floor below, smashed through the floor—only for something bizarre to leap out.
It was that insolent half-blood brat who had bitten into his calf.
There was one difference now: a crimson single wing had sprouted from her back.
One of the Ghoul's Kagune types—the [Ukaku], specialized in high-speed combat and long-range attacks.
A Ghoul’s combat capability varies wildly depending on their Kagune; the strength of the Kagune is the strength of the Ghoul.
However, it was extremely rare for a child to manifest a Kagune at such a young age.
Besides... in terms of experience and compatibility, I should have the clear advantage as a [Koukaku]!
While an [Ukaku] allows for rapid strikes, the attacks are light. They struggle to pierce the heavy, armored wall of a [Koukaku].
Moreover, the brat was barely a fraction of his age. There was no way she had any real combat experience.
And yet, why?
Despite having a Kagune that seemed freshly manifested, her movements were unnervingly natural. She darted across the battlefield with such agility that he couldn't keep up.
One moment she was attacking from the front, and the next she was already behind him. Whenever he tried to guard his rear, a blow slammed into his flank. And the impact was significant.
Wherever the brat’s [Ukaku] struck, chunks of flesh were torn away.
This is wrong! This half-blood bitch's Kagune is way too powerful! Is this really a newly manifested Kagune? Me, being pushed around by some human-ghoul hybrid... a hybrid?
At that moment, a specific term surfaced in his mind.
Hybrid superiority.
It was a term often used in urban legends to explain the overwhelming strength of the “One-Eyed Ghoul.”
The phenomenon where a hybrid born from distant bloodlines possesses abilities far superior to those of a pureblood.
To a Ghoul, it sounded like a fairy tale, but it was the only way to explain this brat’s power.
No! Forget hybrid superiority—this brat's fighting style is the problem! I can't read her patterns at all!
No matter how outstanding her Kagune was, he was a seasoned Ghoul and she was a spoiled child raised by humans. His technical skill should have been superior, yet it meant nothing here.
She saw through his feints as if they were obvious, refusing to take the bait.
She would charge in recklessly, only to dive into an unexpected opening, stacking up hit after hit.
These weren't the movements of a trained Ghoul. If anything, it looked like a child acting on pure emotion.
But if that child possessed a terrifyingly sharp instinct and the physical control to execute it, the situation changed entirely.
KWAANG!!
The heavy [Koukaku] lunged at Eto again, but only succeeded in smashing another wall.
Taking advantage of the opening, Eto’s [Ukaku] shot toward his exposed right chest.
PUU-UK!!!
“GRAAAAH!!!”
The scream was born more of fury than pain. He was enraged at his own inability to easily kill a mere brat.
Eto didn't let that moment of rage go to waste. She bared her nails and lunged for the Ghoul’s eyes. A beat too late, the Ghoul raised his [Koukaku] like a shield to block the strike.
KANG!
“...!”
He had thought he'd missed the timing, but he managed to block it by a hair's breadth. Only then did he notice that Eto’s momentum had finally waned.
“I see. Hybrid superiority or not, you're still just a child. Your stamina can't keep up.”
“Haa... haa... haa!”
Though the fight hadn't lasted long, Eto was gasping for air, her entire body drenched in sweat as if she had been caught in a downpour.
It was the inevitable weakness of the [Ukaku].
While it allowed for high-speed combat, it consumed stamina at an alarming rate. They simply couldn't sustain a long fight.
Eto’s movements, which had been impossible to track, were now visibly slowing. She had reached her limit.
Perhaps panicking over her fading energy, she increased the frequency of her attacks, but she couldn't pierce the solidity of the [Koukaku].
Even the few strikes that slipped past the armor and grazed his skin were no longer dangerous.
The tide had turned. Because she failed to end the fight early, Eto had lost.
Just as the Ghoul began to smile triumphantly at the slowing girl—
“Eto!!”
“!”
A human suddenly crashed into the battlefield. It was Koma.
The Ghoul frowned, surprised to see Koma alive after thinking he'd been crushed by concrete, but he didn't give it much thought.
He was just a human barely able to stand—completely powerless. He couldn't risk losing focus on Eto and giving her a chance for one last fatal blow.
That was the Ghoul's critical mistake.
Eto, however, was looking straight at Koma.
In the moment the Ghoul looked away, she caught the “signal” Koma had made with his hand.
Nod!
Understanding Koma’s intent, Eto charged the Ghoul again with renewed ferocity.
As if determined to end it all with this one surge, she flew like a storm, striking from every possible angle.
“Hah! A final struggle?”
Knowing Eto had staked everything on this assault, the Ghoul shouted confidently, certain of his victory.
Then, he felt a small impact from a direction completely unrelated to Eto’s attack. It didn't hurt, but it was incredibly annoying.
He glanced over to see Koma hurling a fist-sized chunk of concrete at him.
When the Ghoul glared at him with murderous intent, Koma simply flipped him the middle finger, his expression saying, “What are you gonna do about it?”
Just as the Ghoul vowed to kill Eto first and then slowly chew that bastard to pieces, Eto dove into the momentary opening.
PAAT!!
Eto’s kick skimmed past his waist. Despite how deep she had penetrated his guard, it ended as a miss.
To the Ghoul, who had struggled to catch her until now, this miss looked like the perfect opportunity to counter.
PUUUUUK!!!
“Kyaaaah!!”
The heavy [Koukaku] slammed into Eto’s back, tearing away a chunk of flesh. Eto screamed as she was sent flying, crashing into the gray wall with enough force to be partially embedded in it.
As the Ghoul raised his [Koukaku] like a spear to deliver the finishing blow—
He froze.
A faint sense of dread brushed past him like a cold wind.
What was that? In the world of Ghouls, where the strong prey on the weak, the instinct for sensing danger is not something to be ignored. Something felt terribly wrong.
The half-blood brat? No. She had just been hit and couldn't move.
Then the human? A mere human threatening him?
Half-doubting himself, the Ghoul looked back toward where Koma had been. Koma was gone. Instead, he heard the sound of rapid footsteps behind him.
The Ghoul spun around to see Koma sliding across the ground. He was reaching out to grab something...
“...?!!”
The Ghoul reflexively reached for his waist.
It was gone.
Eto’s kick hadn't missed. It had hit its target perfectly.
She had read Koma’s signal—the hand gesture mimicking a gun—and had knocked the holster right off the Ghoul’s hip!
“You bastard!!!”
By the time the Ghoul turned to charge, Koma had already snatched the holster and drawn the weapon.
“If you had actually been doing police work, this gun would have ‘that’ in it, right?”
Because his father had been a Ghoul Investigator, Koma knew things the general public didn't.
This was one of them.
Police officers, who frequently encounter various crimes, are the most likely to run into Ghouls after the Investigators. Consequently, every officer carrying a firearm for “self-defense” is issued special ammunition.
Anti-Ghoul rounds created on the same principle as a Quinque. Their name was...
“[Q Bullet].”
A pistol that had never once served its true purpose while in the hands of a Ghoul pretending to be a cop to devour humans.
Koma loaded the rounds and aimed the weapon at the most fitting target it could ever have. He pulled the trigger.
TAAAANG—————!!!!
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